Learning How To Write
It feels like itās been quite some time since I wrote anything. Thatās not the case at all, in reality. Far from it, in fact. I write thousands of words every single week, in microscopic thought-bites, scattered around the web on Twitter, Facebook, Dribbble, GitHubāanywhere thereās a sign up form, there are probably some words from yours truly. More often than not, theyāre somewhere along the lines of āWow, itās been a while since I was here! Time to get back into it.ā
Except itās never the time. Itās never even the time here, on my own blog. You see, writing is a very special beast indeed. I find myself ever so tangled in the syntaxes and conventions and environments and mindsets and processes and rituals of writing that I forget to everā¦ write. To sit down and button up and put words on a page or a screen. I spend countless hours ruffling papers and tickling keyboards, researching the correct and appropriate usages of various dashes, relentlessly perfecting my text editor of choice and counting words like some kind of mad accountant; usually until my better half rolls over and tells me to āStop it, itās 3 in the morningā or something of the sort.
Designing doesnāt really have this baggage. At least you know where you stand with design. Itās quite easy to click a mouse and think some things and within some time have a grid or a nice poster or something. Itās all good and well making systems and containers and shells for content, but the contentāthe meatāis a little trickier.
I quite recently reclaimed weekends. Weāve spent the weekends of the last 4 months or so massaging our lives into a new home. Moving across the world in nothing but a pair of suitcases, and then moving across the city in what I can only describe as possibly the most quickly accumulated and vast collection of Things You Find In An Apartment the world has ever seen. Having these weekends suddenly empty to make room for the mythical āfree timeā Iāve heard so much about has been very nice indeed, but also rather daunting.
Suddenly, thereās the pressure to write. To be the writer I want to be. But for who? For my reader? I expect not. I doubt thereās a single person out there who feverishly refreshes their browser, gasping for more words to wax over, especially on my own site. Further to the point, I so happened to spend some time burying my writing under hard-to-find links to give myself a chance to figure out exactly what I want my blog to be. What is a blog? What is a website? Who knows? I feel as though my website shouldnāt be called a website and my blog a blog, but rather just āthings.ā Places, maybe. Lists and words and pictures. The weirdest magazine on Earth.
So, if not for my reader, I must write for me. That, therefore, is where this daunting feeling is coming from. I have to look inside. Isnāt it funny how confidence comes in glasses and crippling self-doubt comes in waves?
Where to start? I canāt really start at āWhy canāt I write as well or as often as I want to?ā since thatās a bit of a loaded and, letās face it, silly question. We already know I write quite a lot, and quality is relative. My writing has improved tremendously in the last year, and continues to do so. So what do I want to write? Memoirs? Tutorials? Design guidelines? Stories? Detailed accounts of typefaces? All these things, and none of them.
Maybe Iām just being greedy. Perhaps I should find the thing Iām good at in writing and stick to it. But then, life would be very boring indeed if we all lived that way. If Iād lived that way, I may already have wound up as a session drummer or a does-well-enough-photographer. I think itās important for us to remain in a state of discontent. Thatās not to say that satisfaction is unproductive, but rather that in order to progress, we should be OK with being uncomfortable.
Iāve know far too many people whoāve spent the vast majority of their lives climbing a ladder they got on without really looking at the others. Iād rather be at the bottom of a ladder I want to be on than half way up one I donāt.
I feel very lucky to have found something I enjoy doing. I feel even luckier that I can choose that thing as a career, and luckier still that it pays well. Many people will never find that. But I wonātāand mustnātālet this satisfaction stop me from peering around other corners. I wonāt become the man I used to want to be.
Thatās why I write. Because itās something I have on the side. Itās frustrating and messy and often painful, but itās something to keep me on my feet. Something to peer at and wonder about. Maybe if I did it more or at a higher standard, I wouldnāt enjoy it as much. So for now, at least, I think Iām content with the discontent it brings me.
So how do I write? In all honesty, Iām not very sure. Iāve tried everything I can think of to help coax words out of my stupid brain. Iāve tried writing more, writing less, writing often, writing rarely, planning writing, brainstorming, flash-carding, note-taking, coffee-drinking, and can honestly say that the only thing that seems to have consistently worked is to simply wait. Much like true love, the inspiration or words or whatever-you-want-to-call-it will find you. Someone wrote about this, and it kills me that I canāt remember. They said that itās like looking for somebody in a store. If youāre both wandering around, looking for one another, itās entirely possible that you will never find each other. If you stand still, though, then theyāll find you. Itās a pity all this waiting is so relentlessly dull.
I do wish I were more eloquent. Like one of those people who seem to have the most beautiful and profound things to say, all the time. The ones who capture everything so perfectly in their words. Theyāre infuriating. Neither in writing or speech will I ever be that perfectly spoken, I think to myself. I find myself in conversation with people, with beautifully formed sentences in my head, but when they tumble and spill out of my mouth like alphabet soup, they just sound silly and offhand. Thatās sort of how I feel about my writing, too.
But then, I started this post thinking it would be a simple 400-word āWhy Meā. Instead, itās turned into a 1000-word and quite-well-written āWhy Meā. If anything, it just goes to show that the best way to start is to just start. Climb up the ladder. Run around the store. Dance. Thatās what it comes down to. Iām learning to write. This is my stupid brain in words. I just hope I havenāt exhausted it.